Banal election, dire threats

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As ordinary government servants here and abroad desperately work to protect us from growing threats, we are faced with the most banal, idiotic election campaigns in my recollection. I feel as though I'm watching a Bertold Brecht play where Macaca and Mark Foley's IMs grab the headlines while news of serious storms brewing is barely covered:

A group of alleged terrorists arrested in London in August planned to blow up airliners over U.S. cities to maximize casualties, rather than over the Atlantic Ocean as many intelligence officials originally thought, according to recent remarks by a senior FBI official.

The comments by Mark Mershon, head of the FBI‚£ôs New York field office, indicate that U.S. and British intelligence officials now think that the airliner plot was aimed at maximizing the potential loss of life and economic impact.‚£úThe plan was to bring them down over U.S. cities, not over the ocean,‚£Ě Mershon said Oct. 24 at the Infosecurity 2006 conference in New York, according to Government Security News, which first reported the remarks in a newsletter this week.

As ordinary government servants here and abroad desperately work to protect us from growing threats, we are faced with the most banal, idiotic election campaigns in my recollection. I feel as though I'm watching a Bertold Brecht play where Macaca and Mark Foley's IMs grab the headlines while news of serious storms brewing is barely covered:

A group of alleged terrorists arrested in London in August planned to blow up airliners over U.S. cities to maximize casualties, rather than over the Atlantic Ocean as many intelligence officials originally thought, according to recent remarks by a senior FBI official.

The comments by Mark Mershon, head of the FBI‚£ôs New York field office, indicate that U.S. and British intelligence officials now think that the airliner plot was aimed at maximizing the potential loss of life and economic impact.‚£úThe plan was to bring them down over U.S. cities, not over the ocean,‚£Ě Mershon said Oct. 24 at the Infosecurity 2006 conference in New York, according to Government Security News, which first reported the remarks in a newsletter this week.